Labor Party Knesset member Ibtisam Mara’ana, whose nomination for the Knesset sparked a legal battle, was named one of the winners of the Israeli Academy for Film and Television’s 2020 awards on Sunday.
The ceremony, held at Cinema City in Glilot in central Israel, honored Mara’ana, a documentary filmmaker, in the fact-based shows category for an episode of “Excuse Me for Asking,” in Arabic.
Mara’ana, an award-winning Arab-Israeli filmmaker from Jaffa who is married to a Jew, found herself at the center of a public controversy ahead of the March 23 elections. Slated on the seventh spot on Labor’s roster for parliament, it soon came to light that she had previously made highly controversial anti-Zionist statements.
Several right-wing groups petitioned the Central Election Committee (CEC) to disqualify her candidacy, which it did. Labor took the case to the Supreme Court, which overturned the CEC’s decision.
Labor won seven seats in last month’s elections, and Mara’ana was sworn in last week as a lawmaker.
This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.